Billings Beta
technology with intention
Texting frequency among middle school students
285 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Analysis of the 8th grade digital identity survey continues to yield interesting trends. This year we have 3x more power-texters than we did last year…we may need to change the high end of our response options next year to get a sense of how many texts these frequent folks send and receive in a month!
Digital identity quotes
287 days
The 8th grade recently deployed an annual digital identity survey of Billings Middle School students. We are still analyzing the data, but here are some interesting quotes that were submitted:
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STEM: Lego Mindstorm Movement
288 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
STEM students returned from break and jumped back into the Mindstorm NXT programming that we began back in March. Today’s class was presented with 3 challenges:
- Make your robot climb an inclined plane and then traverse a table top, stopping within 1.5 cm of the far edge. Students were encouraged to succeed in this challenge using 3 different variables: wheel rotations, time and distance.
- Send your robot at least 10 feet away from its point of origin and then return to within a 6cm radius of the starting location.
- Program your robot to travel in a figure 8.
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Design week: alphabet improv
296 days
by Jac de Haan
in Projects
This Design Week, one group looked at our theme of PLAY through the lens of musical and dramatic improv. They documented their experience with Flip video cameras and then edited the footage in iMovie. The soundtrack was recorded in Garageband and used only real instruments played by members of the group.
The prompt was simple: Sing the alphabet song in any style you like. Enjoy!
300th blog post!
298 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
This is officially the 300th blog post on Billings Beta!
What started in June 2007 as a way to document classroom lessons has evolved into an award-winning resource for students, teachers and families to understand the impacts of technology in real-world and digital communities.
Thanks so much to everyone: site visitors, educators that take the time to comment on stories, and the 270+ feed subscribers – your interest in our work keeps students motivated to share their experiences with the world.
Blog for iPad
300 days
Just for fun we installed the onSwipe plug-in on our WordPress blog. This snippet of code re-formats content into a magazine-style layout for the iPad. Screenshots of the results are below:
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Design Week 2011
305 days
6th and 8th grade students are busily engaged in the Billings tradition of “Design Week” in the days before Spring Break. How excited does everyone get about a week’s worth of exploration around this years topic of PLAY? 106.8 decibels worth of excited, according to our sound level meter! That is louder than a motorcycle or subway train.
To learn more about this year’s Design Week, check out the daily postings on our main website. If you are logged in as a school community member, you’ll have access to each day’s complete photo albums from the right sidebar.
The Battle of Fredericksburg
309 days
7th grade students are studying the Civil War in American History class. They decided to film recreations of some of the battles that occurred. Below is one example by Ben and Cooper with the rest of the class acting:
8th grade students’ art show open to public
311 days
Deividas and Isaac, two 8th grade students, have been playing with iPhone photography for almost a year now. Their first public art exhibit will open April 1st at Fremont Coffee. The show runs through April 30th and also features the work of students from John Hay, Coe and Lowell.
This opening coincides with the Fremont First Friday Art Walk. Congrats to all participants!
Lego Robots – intro to programming
313 days
by Jac de Haan
in 6th Grade
6th grade STEM students are spending Fridays through the end of the year learning about programming concepts and physics with Lego Robotics. We just built the Edubots in class. Arthur, Jake and Collin are all part of our afterschool club, so they are using this time to plan curriculum and robotics challenges for the rest of the class.
Lesson 1: Collin led an intro to the NXT programming environment and simple move commands. Super cool!
